


A dream, resurrected

by garglyswoof



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sci Fi AU, lots of worldbuilding so give it time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 09:42:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof
Summary: In the year 2145, darkness has fallen and humanity lives vicariously through Dreams, technology developed to live out both your greatest dreams and your most poignant memories. But science can only go so far, so when a young blonde witch starts adding magic into the mix, the Mikaelsons take notice.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArrenEmris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArrenEmris/gifts).



Caroline bent over the Dream and let the magic flow.

Conductive metal flashed in the light, then dimmed in the shadow of her bent form as her magic pulsed through the circuits into the chip. This was a special order, a present for a beloved grandchild, and Caroline closed her eyes, remembering the old woman’s smile as she’d described the memory. Caroline carefully placed the emotion she’d seen there, every bit of it, into the chip. Love. Safety. A longing. Fierce loyalty, and the bittersweet sentiment of youth seen through aging eyes.

A fan whirred quietly, cooling the chip as her spell drew to a close, sparks flitting up from the silicon. A robotic arm cleared Caroline’s field of vision, almost tentatively hovering over the chip and absorbing the static.

“Don’t worry Taco,” Caroline murmured at the robot’s expression. The droid’s sightlenses were set close together, giving it a myopic, worried look. A small chirrup and the static-wand folded back into his dented chassis, where the letters

T.A.C.O.

were stamped in faded ink.

“All done,” she mumbled to herself, picking up the Dream slide and carefully sliding it into the chemically-keyed safe. Katherine had insisted on the highest level of security for the magic-altered dreams, and while Caroline didn’t much like her boss, she wasn’t keen on revealing her magic to the world.

She’d learned that lesson well enough from her parents.

Caroline sighed and raised the digital blinds, her sigh deepening at the rain spattering the windows, the droplets holding the lights of a thousand flashing scanvids. Kat’s store was in downtown Mystic Falls, and the signage was more obnoxious here than anywhere else in the city.

She palmed the air, sending the blinds back down, and exhaled a bored huff. Vincent was off today, no doubt trying his damndest to get Freya to see him as more than a friend, poor guy, and she’d been alone the whole shift aside from a few customers picking up orders or window-shoppers admiring the flash of the latest dream releases. The walls glowed with holo-trailers, from first-person action dreams where the fate of the world rested on the dreamer’s shoulders, to nature dreams for those that still remembered the shine of the sun over the horizon, and of course, the bevy of porn dreams advertised by hard bodies and pouting lips.

“Brr-brrip?”

“Oh! I’m sorry Taco! We’re done for now. I wish I was kidding with three hours left of my shift but…” She sent the little robot into standby mode and hauled herself onto the counter, feet dangling from the height. “Let’s see what the scanvids have to tell us today.” A blink and a wave and the trailers were replaced by an imperious blonde woman speaking to a dark-haired male interviewer. She appeared annoyed by the line of questioning.

“Tell us - may i call you Rebekah? Ah, (coughs) Miss Mikaelson then, did you ever dream (big wink) that your family’s invention would become so popular?”

“Of course. We’ve always been destined for greatness -

“Wow, arrogant much?” Caroline rolled her eyes at the screen.

“- so it was just a natural progression for us to delve into the sciences, and master technology until we could create Dreams.”

“And then on to the memory dreams, eh?”

The blonde barely acknowledged the interviewer’s statement, and even though he was smarmy and his hair needed about ten less layers of gel, Caroline found herself instinctively bristling at Ms. Mikaelson.

The host seemed unbothered, if not motivated by his interviewee’s clear disdain. He leaned forward, eyes glimmering with his next question.

“Some say Dream needs to be regulated, that people abuse Dreams and your company has an obligation to advise and protect users.”

Ms. Mikaelson stared coldly at the interviewer. “Dreams are non-addictive, physically, we have scientific studies from several independent sources to validate. What humanity chooses to do is a willful choice. Dream doesn’t take away free will and to act like it’s our obligation to protect idiots from their own bad behavior is ridiculous.

“What a PR nightmare.”

A short, huffed laugh answered her unexpectedly and she almost fell off the counter. A man stood just inside the vestibule, his lean form darkened with rain. He was incredibly attractive, day-old scruff lining his sharp jaw and accentuating his full lips, and something familiar lay in his features, just on the edges of her recognition.

“So you think it’s a company’s responsibility to control those who use its product?” The man finally said, his accented voice confusing in light of the vid she was watching, like Caroline’s Mystic Falls accent was somehow the anomaly here.

She swung off the countertop and slid behind it, feeling the need to put space between her and the stranger, but she hid her discomfort in her response. “Ethical consumerism is a thing, you know. As well it should be, considering.” She swept her arms out to indicate the world-at-large.

The man stepped closer to the counter and Caroline tensed - that was what it was. He was so quiet, hadn’t even made a noise when he entered, and something about his lean grace felt…she wasn’t sure what it felt like, but her senses were on a confused alert.

He smiled then, as if he knew and was well-pleased by her discomfort. “So, do you Dream,” he looked down at her chest where her nametag lay, his gaze lingering, “Caroline?”

She crossed her arms, irritated, as Taco whirred beside her, his camera function set off by the presence of a customer. “Of course I Dream,” she said, “Who hasn’t? But I’d much rather hang out with friends and have new experiences.”

He nodded as if he expected her answer. “The Memories still lack something, don’t they?” His eyes caught hers and she resisted the urge to freeze at the calculation in them. This wasn’t the first person that had sniffed around Kat’s shop. What she was doing, adding magic to the dreams? It couldn’t be detected by tech, and of course people believed in magic as much as they believed in fairies and vampires, i.e. not at all, but there was a clear difference in quality in the Dreams and it had not gone unnoticed.

She shrugged, nonchalance schooling her expression. Her shirt slid off a shoulder with the movement and she smiled inwardly when his eyes left hers to track it. “I guess! So, is there something I can help you with?”

His eyes traced back up to her face and narrowed at her clear dismissal. “Is the owner here?”

“Nope! They’re only here for consults. Would you like to make an appointment? Or is there a Dream I can help you with?

He stared at her for a moment, something dark passing across his face. “I don’t Dream.”

She wanted nothing more than for him to be gone, but somehow a question spilled from her lips. “Why not?”

The interview still droned along the holoed wall, and in the silence that descended as the stranger stared at her, Caroline heard the haughty tones of Rebekah Mikaelson, PR nightmare and clearly a world-class bitch, say:

“-there is no hope for the human race if they insist on depending on a Dream.”

The stranger’s mouth lifted in a smile, his hand gracefully arcing palm up as if to say - yes, that’s it, precisely - then he turned and walked away into the city’s shadow.


	2. Cringe Factor

Caroline closed her eyes and drank in the sun’s rays, all too aware that outside the dome rain still slashed across the city. These parks were all humanity had since whatever term you used for it - grimdark, sombrio, evernight, maiban - had fallen; a thousand words in a thousand languages to describe the sun’s slow demise, leaving the earth in eternal twilight.

A few months ago she’d have been sitting on a blanket with Stefan and Elena, but times changed, didn’t they?

She opened her eyes, tracking around her to make sure Elena and Damon weren’t here. For a few weeks she’d had to endure both Elena’s recriminating glares and her hopeful glances, but thankfully she’d finally gotten the memo and left Caroline Wickery Park in the friend-divorce.

Good. The Falls had always been her thing anyway, well, her and her mom’s. A hologram from before even grimdark had set in, the falls tumbled their imaginary way to the base of the park. A never-fixed error in the code glitched the falls on a loop, the slightest shift sideways every five minutes, a blip in the perfection that she’d miss if it were gone. Stefan had used to make fun of her obsession, teasing in that dry way of his while he tilted his face to the sun. Vampire or no, he loved the light.

She palmed the chip on her neck, checking her messages. Nothing. She was more pissed than anything else at this point, at least that’s what she told herself. Stefan had left town to fight his post-breakup demons, but she hadn’t expected him to ditch her and that was bullshit, right? It totally was, but anger always had another face and it slipped and showed itself now as her eyes dropped and her shoulders sagged and she ran out of excuses she could make for him.

A message flashed across her retinas like a lifeline - _You’re coming to dinner tonight with me and Frey_

She smiled. Vincent’s timing was uncanny, and not for the first time she thought he might have some seer blood. She thought back:

_Demanding aren’t we? OK, remind me to tell you about the weird dude that came in today_

_If it’s one of Kat’s BDSM boy toys I don’t want to hear it._

She sent over a laugh before closing the connection, the falls glitching in her periphery marking the time even as a low chime announced the sun hour’s close. Ten minutes left to soak up the rays, she thought, turning towards the falls and bending her knees towards her chest to rest her chin in the space between.

And that’s when she saw him. He had a ball cap pulled down low as if he was hiding from something, but his jawline was unmistakable paired with that lean, muscled body of his. He stood off to the side of the falls, speaking to a man in what appeared to be a less-than-friendly way. The look of horror on the listener’s face grew as the man from the store - god had she really just referred to him as weird dude? More like terrifying dude - drew closer to his face. The two men were almost intimate in their closeness, were the body language different.

Caroline scanned the rest of the crowd, but no one else seemed to notice the pair in the packing up of blankets and portable chairs that marked the end of the hour. She turned her focus back to the pair as the dangerous, _not_ weird, man smiled a dark smile and waved mockingly at the other man’s back, whose wide-eyed expression of abject terror was much easier to read face-front. The thought crossed her mind that she seriously needed to get the hell out of there before the other man noticed her, but when she looked back his eyes were already on her, his smile shifting to something softer, and she tamped down that rising climb of her heart. Just because he was attractive did not mean she was going to lose her head here. Auugh. Bad choice of thoughts.

“Hello, love.” And just like that, she felt that same jolt of recognition that she’d felt in the store. What the hell? She racked her brain while flashing him a quick, noncommittal grin, shoving her folded blanket in her satchel. He continued, seemingly undeterred by her indifference. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the best sundome in the city.”

“There’s a newer one center city with a far superior sun.”

“It doesn’t have the falls,” she said, regretting it almost immediately. She wanted nothing to do with this guy and whatever dangerous bs he was involved in, and here she was spewing personal details and watching as his face softened at her admission and _damn it._

“They’re a favorite of mine as well,” he admitted, and she believed him, though it didn’t stop her from trying to brush past him, headed for the sundome’s exit.

“Tomorrow, then?” The words were directed at her back, and she turned, irritation plain on her face.

“If me walking away wasn’t an indication, I’m not interested.”

He smiled then, more predatorial than pleased. “You haven’t even heard my offer, Caroline.”

God, curse that nametag, because she was tired of hearing her name roll off his lips like he owned it. She threw open the door as the sundome clicked off, entering the grimdark once again, his laugh trailing behind her until the door sealed shut.

* * *

  
“And then like the apparent stalker he is, he showed up at the park and made some guy pee his pants and acted like we were friends or something and I-”

“Wait, wait, hold up. Rewind, girl. What do you mean he made some guy pee his pants?” Vincent asked, grabbing their drinks off the whirring servitor's tray with a mumbled thanks. He slid Caroline's across the tabletop and lifted his brow expectantly, the sharp angles of his face even more pronounced in the dim lighting of the bar.

“Well i mean, not literally because _eww_ but honestly? Maybe. The guy looked scared enough. I wasn’t looking at his pants so I mean I have no proof. Look, the important question here is what the hell does he want with me?” Caroline’s hands punctuated the question and the man across from her ducked his head, fighting a losing battle with a laugh. “This is NOT funny, Vincent.”

Vincent waved a hand placatingly, raising his voice over cheers from the bar, two guys giving each other fist bumps as their team scored on the holos. “I know, I know, it’s just I haven’t seen you this worked up since Elena wore that dress to the gala.”

Caroline’s voice dropped to a poisonous whisper. “Do you mean when she wore _my_ dress to the gala?”

Vincent tapped his nose and pointed at her, a small grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, and was gratified to see her eyes flashing.

“I’m not _that_ worked up. That was dress betrayal and it cut deep. You don’t do that to a girl.”

“Do what to a girl?” a pixyish blonde asked, sliding into the booth next to Vincent, shooting a small smile at him before facing Caroline, expression quizzical.

“Oooh perfect we have an unbiased third party -”

“I was unbiased too, Care!”

Caroline ignored him. “So, lets say you had plans to go to a fancy benefit, and put an amazing dress on hold. What would you do if your friend bought that dress?”

“Oh my god are you _kidding_ me?”

Vincent looked back and forth between the two girls and shook his head, smiling. “Caroline, meet Freya. Freya, Caroline.”

Freya waved the introduction away, intent on the moment. “Wait but seriously, your friend bought the dress you wanted? And she knew?”

“Yep!”

“Are you still friends?”

“Nope!”

“Good.” Freya visibly relaxed. “Oh, and nice to meet you by the way. Vince has told me so much about you.”

Vincent winced.

“Vince???? You call him Vince???” Caroline turned to face him. “You let her call you Vince?”

Vincent had the grace to look embarrassed, Freya confused, and Caroline shot off a comment, eyes darting to Freya as she spoke. “He hates being called Vince.”

“Oh my god I’m so sorry, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Shh it’s ok! It doesn’t bother me when you call me Vince.”

Caroline smiled at this, a knowing grin, and deliberately ignored the glare that Vincent sent her way. He cleared his throat and tried to change the subject.

“So Frey, you hungry?”

Freya’s eyes widened. She was pretty, Caroline noted, delicate features framing those big eyes.

“I’m freaking starving. I skipped lunch because I was totally in the zone on some research.”

Caroline smiled, unsurprised. She’d had enough science-major friends at school to learn this was normal behavior. Vincent had told her that he’d met Freya at school, both of them mechanical engineering and genetic biology double majors at Whitmore, the college just on the edge of the city.

“Do you work on Dream?” Caroline asked, lighting the holographic menu on the table so Freya could take a look.

“Not anymore, thank god.”

Caroline’s eyebrows rose. Dream was quite literally the dream for most engineers these days - top-level researchers were all clamoring to use the new technology to craft relived memories and discover how to augment chips with neurotransmitters. It was cutting-edge stuff, so Freya’s response was surprising.

“Oh, I guess you -” Freya cut off, looked over at Vincent and smiled, her voice soft and pleased when she spoke next. “You never told anyone!”

“Not my story to tell, Frey,” his smile was as soft as her voice, and Caroline’s eyes gentled in reaction. It was clear he was head over heels for her, but Caroline didn’t quite have a grip on how Freya felt in return yet.

The girl in question turned back. “So, I suppose you know how Dream came about? Well. I was part of that.”

“Wait, what? I thought the Mikaelsons developed Dream?”

Freya shifted in her seat and stared at the table, her long fingers spinning the stem of her cocktail glass the servo-droid had brought. “I-I’m a Mikaelson. I co-developed Dream.”

Caroline did not shock easily, but this revelation floored her. “Wait, so-”

“Yes, all those Dreams you watched in high school probably had my hand in it,” Freya laughed ruefully. “Sorry about those.”

Caroline took another look at Freya’s face. She had assumed they were the same age, but it was impossible to tell these days. Eternal youth could be bought and paid for with a quick trip downtown.

Freya seemed to sense the question and nodded with a quick ‘Yeah, I’m older than I look’, and Caroline let it drop. It wasn’t any of her business, and she could tell from Vincent’s darting glances and the tension in his shoulders that he was so damn worried about this going well. It was seriously adorable, and she gave him a quick smile before turning back to Freya.

“So, are you telling me I have you to thank for that horrible horseback riding dream that had that snotty equestrian teacher with the chip on her shoulder?”

Freya spit her drink out. “Oh my god. I’m-” She started laughing so hard it dissolved into coughs, Vincent and Caroline looking at each other confusedly over their cocktails. “I’m s-sorry, it’s just- we-we had mother play the teacher and just-” another gale of laughter before she took a deep breath and centered herself, “Snotty equestrian teacher with a chip on her shoulder is so on brand for my mother. That was truly art imitating life.”

Vincent’s shoulders eased their tension as he joined in the laughter, the bartender glancing up from the polished ancient bartop at the sound, one servo-arm drying a plasticene tumbler as he eyed the table with a mild look of annoyance that only Vincent caught. He reined his laugh in, though his eyes widened with a sudden memory. “Ohhh what about those the vampire ones. Oh my god, you made the vamp ones too. I should have realized it. Those dumb Dreams sent the entire world on a vampire craze for YEARS. Oh my god I can’t believe we never talked about this before.”

“We didn’t because it’s embarrassing, ok? I should never have let them write their own scripts, because it’s super awkward to have friends when the world is still not-so-secretly lusting after your brothers.” Freya paused. “Hey, Caroline, are you ok?”

“Oh my god.”

“What, what’s wrong,” Vincent looked up in alarm at Caroline’s face, pale and almost sickly in the light of the holoscreen’s flashing sports recap.

“N-nothing. I’m sorry. I have to go. I, uh, I forgot I was taking care of Mrs. Bennett’s cat.” Turning to Freya, she smiled, trying to make it as earnest as possible despite the panic rising in her throat. “It was really nice meeting you!”

“Care?” There was worry in Vincent’s tone, but she needed to get out of there.

She jumped up, waving her arm over the table and mentally authorizing the charge. “I paid for your drinks. We should meet up again sometime! I just - something came up?!”

She rushed out the door and left in her wake their confused stares and Freya’s plaintive question. “Did I say something wrong?”

* * *

  
Back at her loft, Caroline stuck her head underneath her bed, pulling out a plasticene storage box labelled MEMORIES in her mom’s sharp, capital-lettered script. She tabbed the lock open and ignored the stuffed animals and spelling bee award-ribbons, rifling past the old books to - _there_.

The Dreams sat in their original cartridges, the artwork a mess of fangs and dripping blood that Caroline had thought was the coolest thing ever when she’d been 17. Her hand shook as she pulled the Dream out, tabbed it into the base of her neck, and sat back on her heels as the Dream began.

The club was packed, house music loud and the smell of sweat and sickeningly sweet vape strong amidst the writhing bodies on the dance floor. Caroline lifted her arms in front of her, noting the disorientation that these old Dreams still gave, and pushed her way out of the crowd to the bar. God it had been literal years since she’d used this Dream and yet still that feeling of illicitness hit her like a freight train as she ordered a cocktail, sipping it slowly when the bartender brought it back and eyeing the room through the haze of smoke and body heat. Waiting for the inevitable. She felt the back of her neck prickle and rubbed it with her free hand before turning to see and hear exactly what she had been dreading since Freya had let out her secret.

“Hello, love,” the man said, his grin dark and as dangerous as it had been mere hours ago. “I’m Niklaus. Can i buy you a drink?"

She tore the Dream out of her neck, breathing hard, her thoughts scattered in a million directions that all led back to the once-stranger who’d promised to see her again. The once-stranger who had filled a starring role in many really uncomfortable to think about right now daydreams. She pushed those definitions out of her head, firmly, and focused on the one that was the easiest: a once-stranger who clearly had a vested interest in Dream and was after her magic.

Surprisingly enough, it was the anger that finally helped her to fall asleep, though she tangled the sheets with her dreams.


End file.
